Orchestra of the Undead breathes life into score

The scrappy bunch of professional
musicians who don skeleton paint and black T-shirts bearing rib cages and spines
can’t play dead when their “demon conductor” David Pierce takes up his baton in
the makeshift bandstand for the beginning strains of Cirque du Horror.

This marks the fourth year for some of
the musicians to put on face paint and make an occasional ugly noise or two in
the spirit of Halloween.

“I wasn’t quite sure what to expect,”
said French horn player Brian Brown, who joined the Orchestra of the Undead
last year. “I’ve played some musicals, and I’ve played some jazzy stuff, but
nothing like this. Musicians don’t have a lot of opportunities to play this
kind of music.”

Cirque is the brainchild of Pierce, a
composer, arranger and freelance trombonist who lives in Denton. Pierce wrote
the musical — a collection of disparate musical sketches about witches, mad
men, lonely hearts and circus sideshow monsters — when he simply grew tired of
the dearth of music written for Halloween.

He changes the show each year, keeping a
few numbers as a skeleton (pun intended) for a show that entertains all ages
with colorful sound and lots of witty jokes. Pierce is a fan of horror movies
and scary stuff, but he knows just how far to push it.

Brown and his mates in the orchestra
play a score that narrates, propels plot and develops characters dreamed up by
Pierce.

“I was really pleased once I saw what
we’d be playing,” Brown said.

The French horn is the regal diplomat of
the orchestra, sounding mellow and deft, triumphant or mild. Brown said he
makes use of effects during Cirque.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “We get to use some
mutes, and you can also close your hand inside the bell [of the horn] and get a
really raspy sound. I really like getting to play like this.”

Brown said he plays plenty of symphonic
“Hollywood”-style sounds, laying the part a trombonist would take in a bigger
group.

This year, Pierce composed music for the
keyboard, electric guitar and acoustic guitar, electric and upright bass,
drums, euphonium, French horn and two trombones. One musician is playing
saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet in the ensemble.

Eric Pulido, the guitarist of Denton’s
Midlake, is singing the role of a lovesick head of a two-headed monster.

“Dave and I have been friends for a long
time,” Pulido said. “I was a thespian in high school and did a lot of musicals
then. I’ve been wanting to be in it [Cirque du Horror], but [Midlake] has been
on tour during the fall for the last few years. Now that we’re in the studio
and not touring, I could do it.”

Pulido shares the stage with jazz
musician Bach Norwood, who sings the role of the monster head that is
preoccupied with food, rather than love, in the number “Hideous as Me.”

“I just hope I remember the lyrics,”
Pulido said. “I really think, as a whole, musically and visually, a show is
supposed to entertain. I think sometimes people can lose sight of that. But
when you’re playing music, you’re supposed to entertain.”

In the song, Pulido sings what Brown
describes as “almost a straight-up Broadway song” about a young woman he’s
seen. He laments being a two-headed monster, doomed to spend his life with just
his other head.

Norwood interrupts the ballad with a
rapid-fire homage to food — all kinds of food, and especially processed food.

This year’s musical riffs on
high-fashion ridiculousness and waif-thin models. It brings the Egyptian patron
of embalmers and attendant of mummies — Anubis, the jackal. It muses over a
figure that arrives with a cold, harsh winter.

Drummer Ryan Jacobi said he quickly
learned what a serious business Halloween is for Pierce.

“David’s charts are gorgeous,” said
Jacobi, an alumnus of Denton band Oso Closo. “A lot of times, when you get
charts for an arrangement, you almost can’t read them. Not David’s. You could
tell he’d been working on this music for a long time.”

Like other members of the orchestra,
Jacobi said the music is easy on the ears, but not always easy to play. Pierce
infuses the show with a touch of gypsy folk music, a flash of pop, and the
sounds that played in old movie houses while silent films rolled.

“It’s not the easiest music. In ‘13
Seconds,’ with so many tempo changes in one song, if I don’t get them all, I
can mess everyone up,” Jacobi said. “I’m kind of the lead in a lot of this.”

That number, about a cold, cruel winter,
is an endurance feat.

“I’m basically sustaining a really long
crescendo,” Jacobi said. “It’s a question of: Can I start at level one and end
on level 10, and can I play it from one to 10 evenly throughout the song? Not
easy.”

The musicians were stumped when asked
what their favorite scary movie music is. (No one mentioned either the
spine-tingling “Tubular Bells” from The Exorcist or the sensual, macabre gypsy
music by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.)

Brown could name a score he wouldn’t
mind playing.

“I really like the score for Young
Frankenstein,” he said. “I’d love to keep doing this. I’ve decided I’ve had
enough of playing music that isn’t fun.”

9:30 to 10:30 a.m. — Zombie Dash, a
children’s walk for health, starting at First United Methodist Church’s side
yard at the corner of Industrial and Sycamore streets. Donations will be
accepted for Denton Christian Preschool.

10 a.m. — Festival and vendor booths
open

1 p.m. — Coffin races on Hickory Street

3:30 p.m. — Salsa cook-off tasting
outside Dan’s Silverleaf

7 p.m. — Twilight costume parade around
the Square

In
the Pumpkin Patch (children’s area)

10:30 to 11 a.m. — Children’s costume
parade

11 a.m. — Clowns on Fire

11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. — Denton
Childbloom Guitar Program concerts

12:30 to 1 p.m. — Spooky story time with
Thom Anderson and Chuck Voellinger

2:30 to 4 p.m. — Miss Polly and Her Tiny
Big Band

Main
Stage

2 p.m. — Bonnie and Nick Norris

3 p.m. — CholoRock Dance Theatre

5:30 p.m. — Circus Della Morte sideshow
troupe

7:30 p.m. — Mariachi Quetzal

8 p.m. — Bone Doggie & the Hickory
Street Hellraisers

Salsa
cook-off

Entrants must turn in 2 gallons of salsa
at 3 p.m.; entry is $40 for businesses, $30 for individuals. Salsa tasting
tickets are $10; tasting begins at 3:30 p.m. For more information and entry
forms, visit http://dentonmarket.org/salsa-cook-off

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